All the toys I can't play with

Voldemort93

The below post is a rant/ suggestion to the developrs/ a call for more guidance. 

I have been going about with MPQ based on the suggestions and the guides offered in these forums. Now these guides are targeted at best use of the in-game currencies and the covers. And I have found it to be very efficient. But here's my little problem.

For the past couple of months, I had collected all the 3 stars and have been champing them. As of now, I have champed a little more than half of these 3 stars. And all my roster expansion has been with 4 stars. I have about 30 4 stars now. The most covered ones have about 7 covers and the least have a single cover. It has been exciting rostering all these new characters. But I'm a little disappointed that I have no place to use them (hence the title All the toys I can't play with). 

The 2 star covers I have, they serve the purpose of farming. I'm currently in 3 star land. So they are all actively being used in the battles. But these 4 stars while they are waiting to be sufficiently covered are just gathering dust. True enough it is useful in DDQ. But the true fun in using a character is exploiting it's power to the fullest extent. And DDQ feels like a mandated exercise. I do like the Battle of the titans node. It is challenging at my level. But it just isn't enough stuff to play with the thirty 4* characters I have. 

By now, it is clear that my problem is the time it takes to cross from 3* to 4* land. So here comes the suggestion part. I only have a vague suggestion. The game's tier (Shield clearance level) system solved the problem of varying levels of covers between the players. But in between the the transition from one level to another, is there sufficient game to keep the players hooked on. I absolutely love every aspect of this game, including the in-app purchases. I think there needs to be a new section to use undercovered characters. Or an expanded DDQ to use more of the undercovered characters.

The reason I ask for this is, these characters while undercovered are hardly ever used. And at the rate and distribution of obtaining covers, these are going to be undercovered for a long time. If there were levels to use these underleveled characters, it could give a place to growing rosters to experiment and try stuff out, which I'm sure will give a lot of fun to me and I guess others too. 

Yup. That's what I wanted to say. 

Hilk

The same thing happens at the 4->5* transition (maybe more so)... it sounds like you are close, so hang in there.  

Start focusing on Command points to get more 4/5 star pulls.
join an alliance where you get better covers from the boss/alliance event.

Good luck!

shardwick

Something that I've wanted for awhile is a training mode that allows you to test out all of your characters as, at the very least, a fully covered character. So even if you only have one cover of Dazzler you could play with her at level 270 right now and with whoever else you wanted to instead of just replaying the first mission of Shield Training over and over again. That would give the game a ton of replay value.

Also, I'm really hoping that they have an answer for dilution soon so guys like you that are in 3* land and are about to transition to 4* land can have an easier time getting more covers for certain characters besides just making them a bonus hero.

ABaker84

They do serve the purpose of allowing you into essential nodes in PvE, which allows you to be more competitive for placement, those opportunities are few and far between for each individual character, but with you having 30+ rostered, your more often accessing those nodes rather than getting locked out

Making the transition from 3 -> 4 is tougher than ever due to dilution, I feel you there. Just gotta get as much CP and LT as possible . The good thing is, now we have saved covers, so at least the ones you pull will not go to waste. 

Just as a reference, I started in November of 2016, Mordo was my first 4* champ in February 2017. As of now I have 35+ 4* champs. It's a long road. But a fun one

DyingLegend

Dilution is horrible and what makes it worse, is the lack of communication about this issue. Be nice is they acknowledged it as a problem and ran some surveys with potential solutions and see what the community thinks. There are plenty of ways to combat dilution. 

shardwick

DyingLegend said:

Dilution is horrible and what makes it worse, is the lack of communication about this issue. Be nice is they acknowledged it as a problem and ran some surveys with potential solutions and see what the community thinks. There are plenty of ways to combat dilution. 

Yup, they've been close to solving it too like if they had the vaulted system of the latest 12 but also let the player have 4-8 additional spots for characters that they wanted to work on so if you finish getting Red Hulk champed then you could switch him out for someone else. 

Ed_Dragonrider

Try giving a 5 year old a toy and then telling them they cant play with it until they are 10 years old.
That is how I feel every time I get yet another 4* character, that of course I don't yet have. I have now managed to roster 54 of them (most of them at 1 cover, the best ones at 6-7 covers) and am having to hoard the LL tokens, not because I want to, but because I don't dare open them. But then how can I advance them if I don't open LTs for them?? Of course with my luck they would all be the ones I don't have yet anyway.

It would be really nice to have more opportunities to earn them or to at least have a chance to use them. (I quite enjoyed this shield training. I actually had all the characters for once, and even though I only have 1 cover for each, I was able to do the first row! )

Hilk

While in 4* land... I opened everything to get the covers... the 6 4*s were at the time more important than the 1 (on average) 5*.    I also pulled the classsic for 20 cp (5 4* per 100 vs 4)... if you do pull a hoard and do he latest... do make sure you like the 5*s as you will get some (for the same problem later).   At this point, you may want to wait for the anniversary....

Dormammu

@Voldemort93 You are in a spot so many of us have been in. When I was there I thought of 4-star covers as bonds, something to tuck away for the future. I thought I'd never make the transition, but the 3-star tier was diverse and interesting so I never got bored with it.

Then one day I had a fully-covered 4-star. It crept up on me out of nowhere. Then I had another one. And another one... after a while I realized I wasn't using my 3-stars very often anymore, except the feeders like IM40 and Switch.

My point is, MPQ is a marathon - not a sprint. Enjoy the 3-star tier; its a fun tier. I'm overjoyed that players like you will never have to go through what us veterans did with all the wasted 4-star covers we had to suffer. Take your time. Wait until you have 4-6 fully covered 4-stars before you champ any of them and make your transition a bit smoother. With saved covers, you have that luxury. I entered the 4-star tier with nothing but XFW and my MPQ life was hell for a while, but you don't have to press into a difficult transition like I did (to prevent cover loss).

Enjoy the ride, dude. You'll get to your destination soon enough.

Persephone

I have all but one 3* champed (I’ve been horribly lazy about champing Dr. Doom). 

I have all but eight of the 4* rostered.  None are champed.  The highest are Vulture and Yondu at 209.  Most only have two or three covers.  I know exactly how you feel.  I am still deep in 3* land.  I am right there with you. 

Listen to @Dormammu .   MPQ is a slow burn of a marathon, not the fast friction of a sprint. 

 

shardwick

@Dormammu it could be worse. The other day I saw a roster whose only champed 4* was Devil Dino.

 @Persephone Doom is actually one of the stronger 3s in that tier. If it was someone else like Elektra or Sentry then I'd hold off but Doom can be a royal pain to deal with since he can put out attack tiles and his purple is brutal. Also, I used to think Yondu was kinda useless but I've been having a lot of fun with him and Vulture this week. Bit of a drain on health packs though.

ZootSax

shardwick said:

@Dormammu it could be worse. The other day I saw a roster whose only champed 4* was Devil Dino.

Devil Dino was my 1st and only champ for 2-3 months.  It didn't affect PVP scaling and matchmaking as much as you would think. ...and when the Anniversary rolled around, I was a virtual god in 3* MMR during the RWAARRR event.  At the time, OML was pre-nerf and EVERYONE was running featured/OML/someone-boosted in the 3* MMR (unless, like me, you had no OML yellow covers).  Champed/boosted Dino one-shot OML with her red for OML's up to ~Lv310.  That was my best PVP placement ever (or at least since my newbie bracket days) and first ever 4* cover from PVP progression (and last until I had 10+ 4* champs).

Would I recommend Devil Dino as someone's first champ?  Absolutely not, but sadly there are probably worse 4*'s out there to be your first champ.  Or perhaps I'm just remembering those silly days of Devil Dino with rose-colored glasses

DAZ0273

The thing I would add is don’t lose heart.

 I also had a particularly rough 4* transition thanks to bad RNG. I got my first 4* X-Force Wolvie champed after vaulting had come into effect and the future looked pretty bleak for the rest of my roster. All my older 4* who were decently covered were vaulted and very restricted and the 3* tier was mostly champed. The carrot dangled though was going to be the ability for champing the “12” new 4* at super fast pace which would make players immediately competitive. This came true for many of the player base (as still evidenced by the 4* meta that still rules now) but I failed to get any of the meta-characters actually champed in this period with only Wasp and Luke Cage to show for my efforts. For example – I did not get one single Vulture cover whilst he was at boosted odds – not one! I was so far behind the curve – I remember gasping in awe the first time I met a champed C4rol as she single-handedly destroyed my team with her black/yellow combo.

 However, I kept on plugging, I finished off the 3* tier and slowly the covers came in for the 4’s, meta included. I had to look at what I could do with what I had. I also set myself goals – silly things like trying to champ vaulted Moon Knight from 2 covers mostly using bonus heroes just to prove it could be done. Fast forward to 2018 and Champed 4’s started coming in at a pace and now I have more characters ready to champ than iso to do so. And Moon Knight is champed (and a lot of fun he is too).

 The current mass dilution of 4* was a real step backwards but they must have their reasons even if they make no sense to us and as noted above, even when they did attempt a fix it was still possible for players to fail hard thanks to RNG.

 This game goes through phases but you will get there eventually and when you do get a champed 4* it will be worth it.

Shintok17

Dormammu said:

@Voldemort93 You are in a spot so many of us have been in. When I was there I thought of 4-star covers as bonds, something to tuck away for the future. I thought I'd never make the transition, but the 3-star tier was diverse and interesting so I never got bored with it.

Then one day I had a fully-covered 4-star. It crept up on me out of nowhere. Then I had another one. And another one... after a while I realized I wasn't using my 3-stars very often anymore, except the feeders like IM40 and Switch.

My point is, MPQ is a marathon - not a sprint. Enjoy the 3-star tier; its a fun tier. I'm overjoyed that players like you will never have to go through what us veterans did with all the wasted 4-star covers we had to suffer. Take your time. Wait until you have 4-6 fully covered 4-stars before you champ any of them and make your transition a bit smoother. With saved covers, you have that luxury. I entered the 4-star tier with nothing but XFW and my MPQ life was hell for a while, but you don't have to press into a difficult transition like I did (to prevent cover loss).

Enjoy the ride, dude. You'll get to your destination soon enough.

This mirrors my experience in the game as well. Non Champed 4*'s are not use full for PVP or PVE aside from doing the essential node in PVE and in Deadpool Daily. It's like an investment that you will definitely enjoy latter on. I now have all 3*'s champed and reap the benefits of the Champ rewards and 3* essential rewards in PVE and DDQ. I also now have Twenty Six 4*'s champed and I'm at the point of the game where it's fun and doesn't feel like its a difficult grind. I'm loving 4* land. You use them when they are boosted in PVP and PVE and they make things so much easier. I also run a 2* farm, which is mandatory when you get to a certain level in this game for resources. I don't want to ever go into 5* land, even though I have every one of them rostered with 8 or less covers soft caped at Level 270.  It wasn't like this always though, but it took a lot of time and dedication. Now the game works for me and I don't have to rush to work for it. Also the Saved Cover feature is the best thing to happen for me since now I control which 4* I want to Champ and when. Keep at it OP. The 3* to 4* transition is rough, but it's well worth it.

Straycat

@Dormammu the difference is we had vaulting and the 3X Latest/vintage. Full dilution coverage is still possible, but even then vets have a head start on new characters with shield training and placement. It is a marathon for sure, but we hopped on the back of a truck for half of it.

The only thing I'd say that hasn't been said is, don't be afraid to play around with undercovered 4*s. My fave sim team for a while was 3* Cyclops, Kamala Khan, and lvl 188 1/5/3 Winter Soldier. His blue was still a powerhouse compared to my 3*s, and I actually used him more before he was champed.

bbigler

Having proper expectations is very important: don't expect to cover and champ 4*s as fast as you did with 3*s.  My new roster is in a similar place as yours.  Collecting 4* covers is an investment; it will payoff one day, just not right now.  Have you been hoarding LT and CP?  If so, when all your 3*s are champed, you could open them all and get a jump start into the 4* tier.

HoundofShadow

I think we are in similar situation, except that I have all 3* champed. I have about 60% of 4* rostered. With BH, 4* progression rewards and some RNG, I was able to get some of my 4* to about 10 covers. As for newer 4*, I have about 6 covers for most of them.  And I'm a FTP player except that I play quite competitively (usually top 10).

I have about 2000 CP and 2.6 mil saved up now. By the the time I have rostered all 4* and then break my hoard, I should be able to champ at least 10 4* simultaneously. 

I do agree that MPQ is a marathon, not a race. As for lack of cover, I think 10 covers is enough to make your 4* usable 

BigRussian

Voldemort93 said:

The below post is a rant/ suggestion to the developrs/ a call for more guidance. 

I have been going about with MPQ based on the suggestions and the guides offered in these forums. Now these guides are targeted at best use of the in-game currencies and the covers. And I have found it to be very efficient. But here's my little problem.

For the past couple of months, I had collected all the 3 stars and have been champing them. As of now, I have champed a little more than half of these 3 stars. And all my roster expansion has been with 4 stars. I have about 30 4 stars now. The most covered ones have about 7 covers and the least have a single cover. It has been exciting rostering all these new characters. But I'm a little disappointed that I have no place to use them (hence the title All the toys I can't play with). 

The 2 star covers I have, they serve the purpose of farming. I'm currently in 3 star land. So they are all actively being used in the battles. But these 4 stars while they are waiting to be sufficiently covered are just gathering dust. True enough it is useful in DDQ. But the true fun in using a character is exploiting it's power to the fullest extent. And DDQ feels like a mandated exercise. I do like the Battle of the titans node. It is challenging at my level. But it just isn't enough stuff to play with the thirty 4* characters I have. 

By now, it is clear that my problem is the time it takes to cross from 3* to 4* land. So here comes the suggestion part. I only have a vague suggestion. The game's tier (Shield clearance level) system solved the problem of varying levels of covers between the players. But in between the the transition from one level to another, is there sufficient game to keep the players hooked on. I absolutely love every aspect of this game, including the in-app purchases. I think there needs to be a new section to use undercovered characters. Or an expanded DDQ to use more of the undercovered characters.

The reason I ask for this is, these characters while undercovered are hardly ever used. And at the rate and distribution of obtaining covers, these are going to be undercovered for a long time. If there were levels to use these underleveled characters, it could give a place to growing rosters to experiment and try stuff out, which I'm sure will give a lot of fun to me and I guess others too. 

Yup. That's what I wanted to say. 

How many days have you been playing this game?

SymmeTrey

The wait is painful and all the comments about the game being a marathon are good. I would add a couple more things -

1. I would say that the wait actually makes the 4-star tier more enjoyable once you get there. Just like any RPG, the wait for the highest levels is a big part of the actual fun. Play a progression game with a cheat code or some way to skip straight to the end game and you will always find that, without the wait and build up, the game is simply not that fun.

2. Once you really get into the 4-star tier things really start to go a lot fast than you would imagine as your roster gains momentum. I champed my first 4-star in January and had more fully covered 4-stars than I could champ by May. Today, I've got a champed 5-star, another fully covered 5-star, and 20 or so fully covered 4-stars that need ISO. As your 3-stars get up to 227+, the 3-star farm starts throwing off LL tokens and chunks of CP. Once you start champing 4-stars, they throw off rewards at a decent clip. Anyway, just know that the pace of rewards will increase.

3. In the meantime, use a bonus hero to try to get your first 4-star champable, then your 2nd, etc... in this new age of saved covers, you should be pulling tokens any time that you have the ability to buy roster slots for new 4-stars. The first couple of champed 4-stars will enable you to start earning 4-star covers with a fair amount of regularity in PVP and those 3 extra 4-star covers per week really help build out your roster long-term.

cschwinge

All 3* champed, but no 4* champed right now (4 fully covered, and I have the ISO for them)

The thing about the 3* tier is that the game throws 3*s at you for good performance. And because of the PvP, PvE and DPD 3* rotation, you basically get all of them in a good distribution even with Elite and Heroic randomness. So the 3* tier is more of an ISO crunch than anything. You can power through some ISO generation tasks, but your progression is basically ISO locked. At one point I had 10+ 3* fully covered, and I had to stop opening packs for several months because I was drowning in 3* covers and the Saved Covers feature was not a thing

Now what I'm seeing at the 4* tier is that covers are a lot slower (duh). Basically under two 4* covers per day when you account for CP, Heroics, progression and events. I am saving LL's now. There's still a decent rotation from PvE/PvP. But ISO is about the same. So we'll see how the actual speed is. I'm betting the ISO is going to pile up, 

DAZ0273

The iso will be gone before you know it and you will find there never seems to be enough - the 4* level champing is brutal for iso costs, hence why cover save is such a game changer at that level and above.